Could Your Thanksgiving Pie Be the Healthiest Dish on Your Table?

Thanksgiving is a holiday predicated on a bountiful, multi-course, marshmallow-crowned feast. It’s delicious, it’s decadent—even the green beans are drowned in cream. But by the time dessert rolls around, a slice of pie can feel like too much of a good thing. This year, consider showing your thanks for the family and friends around your table by serving a stealthily lighter—but no less flavorful—incarnation of after-dinner pie. Creative bakeries across the country are radically rethinking classic dessert standbys, swapping butter for trans-fat-free oils, refined sugar for raw dates, and bleached flour for ground nuts, all the while elevating the textures and flavors we look forward to each year. After the turkey, the stuffing, and the sweet potatoes (let’s be honest, a mid-meal dessert in themselves), these modern versions of your favorite pies are the ultimate palette-sealer.

Raw Pumpkin Pie, Nourish Café, San Francisco San Francisco’s Nourish Café builds its seasonal pie on a gluten-free crust of pecans and oats flecked with omega 3–rich flax seeds. Organic pumpkin sweetened with maple syrup and infused with a signature blend from the city’s beloved Spice Ace shop forms a rich and aromatic filling, minus the processed sugar, butter, or eggs. Topped with a dollop of whipped coconut cream, this pie is nutrient-dense and irresistible.

Vegan Apple Pie, Blossom Bakery, New York City Manhattan’s Blossom Bakery keeps its apple pie traditional while simultaneously cutting all cholesterol, trans fats, and animal products from the equation. Vegan and organic, its Granny Smith pie is tart, sweet, and, thanks to a blend of heart-healthy oils, buttery in flavor. Bonus points for the nutmeg-crumble topping.

Gluten-Free Coconut Cream Pie, Café Gratitude, L.A. The raw, live, and gluten-free Coconut Cream Pie at L.A.’s cultish Café Gratitude has the custardy texture and exuberant flavor of a classic cream pie—but it shares just two ingredients with its heavier predecessors: vanilla and salt. Unsweetened coconut flakes and dates form the basis of the flour-less crust, while house-pressed coconut milk and fresh coconut meat blend together to create a silky filling. In place of whipped cream topping, it’s finished with a crunchy coconut dusting.

Raw Key Lime Pie, JugoFresh, Miami Miami’s JugoFresh takes the health-first standards it developed for its cold-pressed juices and distills them into its raw Key lime pie. Available only for Thanksgiving, the almond-date crust and lime-avocado filling, garnished with vitamin-rich chlorella, is a fresh, bright, and shockingly tasty take on the standard.